Few Hollywood stars alive today are as closely associated with the Western as Kevin Costner. From Dances With Wolves, to Open Range, to Wyatt Earp and beyond, he’s long seemed at home in the Old West, telling stories of American history. Not to mention, in recent years he’s rustled up millions of viewers as the figurehead of Yellowstone, one of the biggest TV phenomenons of the last decade. But it’s now that he’s about to unleash his all-out Western epic – a long-gestating passion project titled Horizon: An American Saga, in which he stars as well as directing, co-writing (along with Jon Baird), and produces. It is, in fact, two feature-length movies – actually set to be four, if he continues to the full fruition of his vision – to be released cinematically this summer. And he’s invested in this in a huge way – literally, since it’s a self-financed project that he's pumped millions of his own cash into. Check out the trailer here:
You have to hand it to Costner, literally putting his money where his mouth is – Horizon looks huge, epic in scope and scale, and clearly its creator believes strongly in the material. Frankly, it’s hard to disagree that – for all the success of Yellowstone and its many spin-offs – the Western really belongs on the big screen, where those astonishing landscapes and epic narratives can unfold without restrictions. This is Costner’s first feature as director since Open Range, with an epic cast that also includes Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Owen Crow Show, Tatanka Means, Danny Huston, Michael Rooker, Will Patton, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrmann, Jamie Campbell Bower and Angus Macfadyen, to name but a fraction of the starring players.
Horizon is described as “a multi-faceted chronicle covering the Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West”, with “a story of America too big for one film” – and it’s hard to argue, given the evidence in the trailer. Here’s the official synopsis: “In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, Horizon: An American Saga explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won — and lost — through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.”
The trailer offers an unapologetically old-school look at a film that itself seems intentionally old-school – and if the Yellowstone crowd turns up in force, we might even see Costner pull off Chapter 3 and 4 after all. Bring on the big-screen release of Horizon this summer.